


The Wrong Legends

by handschuhmaus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Watership Down - Richard Adams
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crack, Gen, Legendary Character Death, Out of Character, absurd penalties for unspeakable taboos, conflation of Tenebrous and Plagueis with El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle, cross-universe storytelling interference, extremely stray particles of inspiration, in which rabscuttle is uncharacteristically violent, spoilers for the death of Tenebrous, this was probably a bad idea, vaguely disturbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1572866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fiver is telling a tale of El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle, but instead of the familiar legends, he relates a disturbing incident from a galaxy far, far away.</p>
<p>At the opera, Anakin is listening to Palpatine's story of Plagueis the Wise, but he really doesn't see how a gambling trickster lettuce thief can help him save Padme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wrong Legends

**Author's Note:**

> This is a silly plot ysalamir I got a while back and wrote up probably too hastily. It's been a while since I've really read _Watership Down_ so I doubt I got the tone right on that, and for that matter it's been even longer *gasp* since I've watched _Revenge of the Sith_ (and I've read _Watership_ more times than I've seen ROTS anyway.) so I very much doubt I remembered that exactly accurately but I still shall go on being an exceedingly eccentric Star Wars fan.

"--El-ahrairah surveyed the burrow and looked on it with approval. 'Keep digging,' he told the yona, and it continued to dig at the loose soil at the wall of the burrow, until the roof began to crumble because it was no longer well supported--" Fiver paused to draw a breath, and the young rabbits looked on at him, a little confused but yet spellbound. "It was then that Rabscuttle saw his opportunity and, as El-ahrairah worked hastily to shore up the burrow, Rabscuttle drove the shelf of rock above down onto El-ahrairah, pinning the prince to the floor of the warren." 

At this word of the Prince of a Thousand Enemies' loyal second turning against him--indeed, trying to murder him, Fiver's audience fled as one, utterly spooked with the thought of such a betrayal, and among a loyal pair of rabbit heroes. One of them went to fetch Hazel-rah. Yet the seer's words didn't halt: he continued relating the story as if compelled, as with many of his visions.

"'What are you doing, Rabscuttle?' El-ahrairah gasped, and Rabscuttle said then 'Betrayal is the way of us' and snapped El-ahrairah's neck like a man does when he wishes to kill vermin. And then Rabscuttle fled, lacking in El-ahrairah's trickery but possessed of his own talents, which would see him through the fleeing." Hazel had come over now, alarmed by what the young rabbits had reported, and arrived in time to hear this last part of the story. When he had said these last words Fiver froze as utterly as if he were caught in the strange light of a hrududu in the night. 

Hazel looked at his brother in horror for a minute after the story ended before thinking to bat him with a paw, to roll him over, to try to bring him out of the strange trance. "Fiver, Fiver, where did you hear that story? Was that from Cowslip's warren? What _was_ that?"

"I--I don't know," Fiver whimpered, coming out of the trance. "A desperate, horrible thing, somewhere, Hazel-rah. Some--sometime. There was--is a giant warren transformed so strangely by two of its own Owsla, into something almost as bad as Efrafa. That is the only way I can explain it, Hazel. But it was--a warren of men." 

Hazel stared at Fiver warily for a long moment. "Was it real, Hrair-roo?" he finally asked gently.

"I cannot say. At any rate, it wasn't real here and now," his brother explained solemnly. Fiver shook himself then, as if to dislodge the story from his being. In a much lighter tone, he invited "Shall we go down and see if there are any cowslips?"

* * *

Anakin grew increasingly uneasy throughout the story the Chancellor was relating. While marginally more interesting to the young Jedi than the Mon Calimarian opera (an easy feat given the abstract nature of the performance), it seemed to have no relevance to his situation at all. Certainly lettuce wasn't going to help Padme, and even if it did remind him of one of the nursery stories his mom had told him long ago, about a witch who grew a rare green in her garden and the man who stole them for his pregnant wife, thus being forced to give up his child to the witch, that was an equally uncomfortable thought. 

"--and then, my boy, the king was convinced that the lettuces had gone bad and so he acquiesced to Plagueis's suggestion that his men remove them from the royal stores. Thusly did Plagueis win the bet regarding the lettuces."

The Hero With No Fear opened his mouth and shut it again several times rapidly in the minutes after the Chancellor had finished the story and fallen silent. Firstly how in the Force was that going to help him help Padme? Was the old man going round the bend with age and the stresses of his job? No, he shouldn't think that of his friend, which Palpatine was. But if the story was accurate, why would a Sith who could preserve life itself concern himself with lettuces? Was this one of those crazy allegorical scenarios like Master Yoda came up with sometimes? Anakin wasn't much good at those. What was he supposed to get out of this? Glancing at the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, he could tell that the man now seemed absorbed in the opera playing out on stage, and showed no signs of having spent the past ten minutes conversing with his young Jedi friend and relating a fairly absurd story about Darth Plagueis and a bet about some vegetables. 

His anxieties regarding Padme not in the least relieved, and further anxieties regarding the sanity of his friend Palpatine having unexpectedly arisen, the Jedi took his leave. 

* * *

Only after Skywalker had gotten up and left mid-opera did Sideous realize exactly what he had done, quite unintentionally, and bother to think several venomous thoughts towards the long dead Plagueis. Curse the Muun for compelling him to relate some nonsense story about a mythological trickster instead of his feats! 

* * *

_From the logs of Plagueis, transcribed in a code known only to himself and here translated into Galactic Basic:_

> Have installed a Force compulsion on Sideous while drained from deprivation and exhaustion that should he attempt to ensnare a further apprentice with tales of my own feats, he will instead relate a version of an old nursery story of a mythological trickster, well known to the likely candidate. Should be quite embarassing. Should not deter said candidate if he is actually ready. 

**Author's Note:**

> Abbreviated Lapine Glossary:  
> yona= hedgehog  
> hrududu= car/tractor/any motor vehicle
> 
> I have no good explanation for why Fiver is picking up on events from a galaxy far far away, nor, really, how Hego Damask came about any knowledge whatsoever of rabbit legends. 
> 
> The lettuce story is from Chapter 15: "The Story of the King's Lettuces", of _Watership Down_ , a slightly mangled version thereof and I only retold a small part here.
> 
> The story Fiver tells is an adapted recollection of the death of Darth Tenebrous at Plagueis's hand on Bal'demnic; as rabbits do not have droids, a hedgehog was substituted.
> 
> And yes, El-ahrairah plays Tenebrous in Fiver's story but is played by Plagueis in Sideous's.


End file.
